Never.
“If Yvanna had backed down and let me take over the family like my grandmother intended, we never would’ve had an issue. The problem was that she and my uncle Julius — the man who died the night we met — belonged to a generation of Amauris that…” He drifted off, struggling to find the right words todescribe how absolutely monstrous his father’s generation had been.
“They were bad people. All of them in their own special ways. My grandmother was the generation that rebuilt the city after the dragons razed it in the Great War, and she felt like her children needed to be just as tough and ruthless as she was.”
“But they didn’t have to survive the same way she did during the war,” Dahlia astutely pointed out. “Those things weren’t as necessary.”
He nodded. “Exactly. What she got was a generation of monsters, each of them special in their own ways and not one of them loyal to each other. When I was born, she vowed to do things differently. For me, family comes first. Real family. My cousins. Their kids. The people who’ve pledged their lives to our name whether they share it or not. They’re my responsibility.”
“You once told me that your grandma raised you.” Big blue eyes, so soft compared to how they normally appeared when they gazed at him, looked even brighter with the sheen of tears in her eyes.
Felix rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip, a kick of arousal hitting him hard as he smeared his blood across the cushion. Answering her unasked question, he muttered, “My father was a piece of shit who lived too long. Dora had him killed a few years before she passed. She didn’t want me to have to do it.”
Dahlia grabbed his hand and held it, their fingers twining against her steadily beating heart. “And what about your mom?”
“She’s around. Not my biggest fan, as you can imagine. She hated my dad, but they had some sort of fucked up bond between them. I don’t think she’ll ever stop blaming me for his death.”
“But you didn’t kill him. Your grandma did.”
He shrugged. “I would’ve, though. To fix this fucked up family, I would’ve.”
Dahlia gave him a long, considering look. “What do you want to do with it? Get out of the syndicate?”
A laugh exploded out of him. “Fuck no!”
“It was a valid question,” she snapped, releasing his hand to smack his shoulder.
He shook his head. “I want the family to stop eating itself alive. I want the kids to have time to grow up without being put to work before they can even drive. I want my own to not worry that someday their siblings will take them out. So no, we’re not getting out of the syndicate. I doubt we’d ever do that. The syndicate built this city, Dahlia. It built this family.”
“What if I don’t want to be part of that?”
The moment hung taut between them, heavy with the weight of expectation. Felix tried to relax his fingers on her waist, but it took more effort than he liked.
Trying to keep his voice level, he answered, “I wish I could give you a choice, Dahlia. I really do. But I can’t.”
She turned her head sharply, her gaze locked on some distant point across the room. The softness between them, sweetened by the sharing of blood and sex and secrets, evaporated. Its sudden absence left a cold vacuum somewhere in his chest.
“So I really am a prisoner,” she said, flat and bitter.
Felix swallowed a sour taste in his mouth. “You’re my bride. I’ll do anything for you — except let you go.”
—Call began Saturday 11:18 PM
—Call ended Sunday 5:04 AM
I’m serious, Dahlia. Next time someone gives you shit, I’m handling it
My Girl
have you ever considered the fact that maybe just talking to me for a few hours is better than threatening to kill people when they upset me
A. That was more than a few hours. You have no idea how much paperwork I got done while we talked. We should do that every night. I might actually get shit done around here.
B. No.
C. You don’t have to deal with everything yourself.
you can’t fix everything for me. Sometimes I’ve got to be a big girl and take things into my own hands, Felix. Independence is important
